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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

One year in...

and I've failed my goal of writing a post a day. I really goofed that one up. In order to sum up this year, here is my stream of consciousness.

I wanted to keep a journal of my thoughts and feelings throughout the year and summer resulted in a collapse of those. John and I had a falling out over something stupid, but he seems very embarrassed about the events that lead up to our not talking and I am a little stubborn.

Honestly, I don't care about what happened. You're a good man John. Foolish, maybe a little naive, and definitely overly trusting, but a good man all the same.  I hope we'll repair things because I do miss you.

If you read this, we need to talk sometime. Also, my Dota stack is always open.

Classes were hard, but I passed them all somehow maintaining a 3.47 GPA this semester. I don't know how I did it, I thought for sure that with a 42% midterm average in linear algebra that I would get a C, but I got a B- in the class. Purdue and grade curves, good grief.

It is starting to look like I won't be completing a film minor if I want to also get a nuclear engineering minor.  I'm going to take film classes for the rest of my general education credits, but I am already looking at a few summer semesters or a potential 'victory lap' semester.  I really have no idea what I am doing when it comes to planning out the next two and a half years.

I'm going to Chicago to hang out with Brie, Stephan, Brian, and maybe Kendall if she can get out of work before going back to school. My mum and dad don't seem pleased, I know they miss me and I miss them dearly, but its a good chance to go see the windy city with friends. I'm not sure what we'll do there, maybe go to the museums or see a show. It'd be nice to catch a musical I haven't seen in some time.

My parents are getting weary of the Vermont weather. It's cold and my dad loses blood flow to his extremities. He really doesn't seem to happy and work is starting to wear on him.

Finally, I am addicted to Puzzle and Dragons. I need to stop paying for stones, that is my new years resolution! NO MORE IN APP PURCHASES!!!!

Peace out 2014!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

It's been a while

So I totally failed my new year's resolution, but whatever. I'm back.

School has been hard on me this semester. I'm no 4.0 student, but it was nice sitting comfortably above a 3.5 at the end of last year.  Now that looks like its going to be gone and with it my scholarship (if my semester GPA is below a 3.0).  RIP my wallet.

I haven't played nearly as much Magic: the Gathering, nor have I played much Dota 2 for that matter. School work has started to consume my life. I don't mind this because Aerospace engineering, despite the challenge, is what I want to be doing. I want to design rockets. I've known this for several years now.

It's funny, when I used to play EVE: Online my Grandmother came to visit and asked me: "Is this what you want to do with your life?"  Indirectly my answer is yes. I want to work in the space industry, I want to design rockets, I want to fly space ships. She's gone now, but I hope she knows that my obsession for EVE stemmed from my love for space.

I don't plan on getting to deep tonight. I have a project to do and an exam to study for tomorrow. Such is life. Also a project to continue working on. Bah. AAE251 I want to beat you so badly, but its hard.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Living with John (I'm back)

So it's been a strenuous the two months since I last posted. In addition to figuring out my own troubles, which fortunately have been minor, I have been absolutely exhausted after living with my friend John. 

John,  if you ever read this,  I hope my frustrations don't hurt you.

It's been very different living with John,  as opposed to being friends who hang out or talk a bunch.  Having to suddenly share a majority  of my home time with John,  time I valued because I could spend a majority of it alone, is not what I wanted from this summer.  I realize that given the context of his suicidal intentions a few months prior it is petty and selfish.  He's even left me well alone,  never truly intruding.  But I also feel the hosts obligation to always attempt to include him when in the summer I hang out with a much different crowd of people,  a group he understandably feels awkward around because he doesn't know most of them. I'm loud, I party,  I'm wild,  and I'm free.  I let loose in the summer where during the school year I am a bit of a prude. It's hard to include JT when he knows me as I am at school, rather than in the summer.

It's hard.  I hope you'll forgive me for this summer JT.

Monday, May 26, 2014

First Outside Bouldering Day!!

I went outdoor climbing for the first time this weekend. Bouldering, technically. I went with my friend and neighbor Andy to climb some of the rocks that have fallen off Mt. Mansfield in Stowe, VT in Smuggler's Notch. An hour drive, some mistaken turns (my fault for not trusting Andy for once...), and one bouldering pad later we were scrambling up some ascents we found just below the apex of the pass.

There are a lot of climbing spots to choose from, but we started at the first one we found along the road. The routes were pretty chalky when we got there, so there is clearly an established group of people who climb these rocks.  The one dry face of the boulder we were working on was probably a V1. It wasn't a difficult ascent and both of us got it after about 3 tries.  I couldn't nail the start, but then again we were in a rush to beat the rain that was starting. We then moved on and practice heal hooks on a rail climb.  It was a route easy enough to just do pull ups on while dangling our feet, but we both wanted to practice our hooks. We also fell a few times.  Our last stop for climbing was at a great rock with about 4 different routes to choose from. We had just given up on the last rock due to rain but this rock was sheltered. Still, topping out proved nearly impossible because of the damp and drizzle, I lost my grip and took an unanticipated fall, but besides that the routes were fun and a bit of a challenge. V2-V3 range.  We did find a boulder outside of our ability (probably V4-5) but we still messed about on it before moving on to the last rock.

If you're in Vermont for the weekend or live here and are looking for a great place to boulder this summer (for free!), the Notch has some great spots and boulders. Just bring a pad, because the local shops that rent bikes, roller blades, and other gear don't have any bouldering pads for sale/rent.  Outdoor climbing wasn't too different from gym climbing, which shouldn't surprise me as much as it did, but it was definitely more fun. Climbing is great.

PS. If any of my terminology is confusing or wrong, I'm a new climber and still don't know what most holds are called. I have my words to describe, but they may not mean the same to another climber.

Friday, May 23, 2014

The Dota 5 Stack

I have trust issues in Dota.  I hate supporting a carry I don't trust, and I sometimes find support to be plain old boring. I like playing highly mobile heroes that can gank hard and fast and then get the hell out of the lane. Natures Prophet has become a favorite of mine because of his ability to hit any lane at any time and help out the team with extra damage/lockdown.  I really love diving after couriers.  Anyway, back to the topic.

It's been a while since I've played with a five stack. I usually solo que or play with my best friend JT or a guy I know named Reed.  Yesterday that changed. We got 5 people in the mumble server we invade and played a few games.  JT has decided his niche is hard support and a gent named Gork liked to support too. This allowed for Reed to go hard carry, myself to take mid, and our fifth, Reptar, to play solo offlane. We pretty much rolled.

Anywho, a couple hours later we played another set of games, except I played a hero I wasn't comfortable with and it basically cost us the game. However, after that we played two more finishing with an hour long game where I played bear and ate things. Lots of things. I had a beyond godlike streak of 14 kills. However, their PL was able to farm in the window of us pushing down top and middle and managed to extend the game a good thirty minutes. We had two sets of barracks, but could not for the life of us catch the PL. He had decent micro skills and got an early heart so it was hard to tell which PL was the real one and the illusions kept splitting and acting like they were dopple-walking. At first our supports were to scared to get a gem and our Pudge was dealing with 600 ping, but because our lanes were constantly pushed Pudge got a heart fairly easily and managed to acquire flesh heap stacks slowly but surely as we ganked everyone besides PL.  At one point, we had 20-30 sentry wards across our side of the map, which made us realize a gem was much more practical. They couldn't kill pudge anyway.  My bear couldn't do much in the late game, nor could venge. We could get kills, but catching PL was so time consuming and I was so afraid of not having buyback that my items descaled. I should have gotten a skadi when I had 6000 gold but I went for the cheaper buy of satanic and saved for buyback. After we got the gem, however, we killed PL 4 times before we could end it. He bought back twice, and we got the last tier 4 with 3 seconds left on his respawn. After that it was BKB pops and whack the ancient and hope enough of us stayed alive. It was a damn good game.

I guess the overarching point of this was that I had more fun in 4 games of Dota, playing as a five stack, than I have in all my other games. The gents I played with were cool, didn't mind my picks, were open to anything, and polite.  I feel like I'm the douche bag because the one game I played support I fucked up.  If you are frustrated with Dota, make friends. Find a group of people who play often, are fun to play with, and don't mind playing any role. You'll have a shit ton of fun.

That's all for now on Dota. I've been home for the last two weeks, my plans for going cross country have fallen through because JT won't be able to get is license in time for us to make it to Colorado.  I'm a bit sad about that, but it is what it is. I'll be getting a job at the elementary school until camp starts, because they need substitutes for the last few weeks. It'll be weird, but it pays well.

Adios.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Semester One is Over

I don't know what I feel.  I suppose I feel sad. All of my new friends are leaving or have left already. College is a lot of fun, I am free from so much responsibility that comes with living at home. Here, I am essentially free to do as I please. What I please happens to be school, but still it is nice not to have to chop down trees, haul firewood, or mow the lawn. Here I can relax with friends almost every night and spend hours rediscovering the physics of the universe.

I think I am afraid that I am going to be bored this summer. Really, really bored.  I am a bit afraid of what I will do when I am bored. Will I smoke? Will I do some things I'll regret? I have no idea. I feel like I may go a bit crazy this summer. I guess we'll find out.

But now for a quick game of dota. I have a lot of packing to finish up tomorrow before I checkout of Wiley at 3. It's ended so quickly, why does college have to be over?

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Finals, Running, and MTG

This week is/was dead week, the infamous week before finals where quiet hours are earlier and final projects dominate the evening activities.  I had three final projects due this week, two of which were fairly straightforward, one of which was a nightmare. Of course it was Engineering 132's final project.  Why should that class ever be straightforward and easy?

We had to create a Graphical User Interface, Video Demonstration, Updated Flow Charts, Updated Navigation Map (thing overall flow chart), a Power Point, and interview our direct users. I still have to interview my direct users tonight, as the final presentation of our GUI is tomorrow morning.
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The meeting on Tuesday for the project was the most nightmarish. It went until 12:30 am Wednesday, a good 5.5 hours for me and more for the rest of my team who met earlier. Then our GUI still had a ton of bugs, which I learned a fix for on Wednesday morning after the project was due. Sigh. So now we are hopefully going to get a regrade based on the lovely effort I put in Wednesday morning during the remainder of our class time (class was let out an hour early) updating the method for passing variables. GUI's suck.

That said, I've remembered the reason I run/ran in high school. I love the nirvana after you run. The pain, the burn, the lovely everything about it. The feeling of satisfaction. Oh, everything.  I ran five miles for the first time in forever yesterday, and boy did it feel good. I'm going to probably run just four this afternoon, I have an event this evening at 6:30 and some other stuff to attend to, so I only have time for a 30 to 40 minute run today.

JT's been having a bad time. I hate to see him so upset and it's really hard to communicate with him about it because we aren't in person and these are really tough times he's going through. His family is in a bad way right now and I have no idea what I can do to help him. Plus I have all these projects I'm trying to attend to and I don't have the time he wants from me right now. Ugh. I feel shitty, but I can't even comprehend how he must feel. JT, if you ever read this, I'm sorry I haven't been there. This summer will be a blast (hopefully!).

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of Magic the Gathering with Stephen, he's fueling my habit and encouraging me to engage once again in the arms race that is buying cards.  I love it. God, I hope I don't end up being a high ranking military official in charge of the Pentagon's budget. I'd blow it all on cool planes and stuff.

Monday, April 21, 2014

My Problem with Focus

With so many classes, exams, finals, and other commitments to negotiate my way through I am finding that my biggest problem with focus. For the few people that were reading this blog, that may have become apparent when I basically stopped writing according to my goal of once a day.  I also failed to maintain a focus in the few posts I made. Here's to a renaissance on this blog.

As I said earlier there are many, many things that require my undivided attention as well as even more things that would seek to throw me off. I am taking a break from my calculus homework to attend to this blog, surprise: its another distraction.

What's going on this week? Purdue's Grand Prix is happening. This means half of the campus has decided not to focus at all. Events are going on every night (every... single... night) and so not much work is getting done. That said, all of the freshmen engineers have an exam tomorrow. I can't engage even if I had an in to any of the socials going on this evening or the next.  However, I may be able to attend events this weekend, so that is exciting.  Something about foam pouring down from the ceilings.

I managed to climb my first V3 a couple of weeks ago. I was really proud, but I haven't managed to complete any others yet, though I am making good progress on my second one. Stephen didn't get the one I got though so that is a plus.  My hands are sore due to a splinter I received playing hide-and-go-seek in the engineering mall so I have avoided the wall. I also am cowardly and haven't cut the damn thing out of my hand yet.  Ugh, it twinges every now and then. If future me doesn't have a hand because of this, sorry (in advance).

Stephen and I have been playing a lot of Magic: The Gathering. When I say a lot, I mean its been almost every day. We duel with the prebuilt decks he owns, we duel with our standard decks, and I occasionally duel with my jank deck that I built from the crappy cards I own. While we are the only two who play frequently on our floor, Yu-Gi-Oh has been the game of choice among the other residents, thanks in part to my room-mates ridiculous collection of cards and decks.

Dota continues to play with my hopes and dreams. Every time I get ahead (I was recently positive by five or so games) I start to play badly or (in my most recent game) have terrible luck. We were winning until our Slardar decided that he didn't want to play anymore and starting feeding. Hard. He was doing ok too, just under-leveled.  And all of a sudden he says "Fuck this, we need a surrender option. I am feeding." The game went to hell shortly after.

So that's my update for now. Not entirely focused but I think it was better written and more in depth than other posts I have completed.  I think I'll aim to update this blog once or twice a week, that way I can write more without feeling like I am droning on and on and on and on...

Fin.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Lecture halls and cheap donuts

Thanks to inflation, spending 60 cents on a donut is cheap. Especially when it's 50 cents cheaper than all other places on campus.

This was the result of a brilliant discovery that I was informed of. There is a student lounge with a coffee shop. It's brilliant.

Now I await my family arriving in from Chicago and this last lecture to be complete and life will be good.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Family visit!

My family is coming to visit this weekend, which makes me extremely excited. Because I am so far away I don't get to see them often anymore and having a chance to show off my school to my sister, who has yet to see it, makes me really giddy. I also am looking forward to introducing my
mother to all of my college friends.

But first I have survive the exams I have scheduled for this evening and tomorrow evening. They are not going to be a cakewalk. Here's to surviving the week. Here's to family. Here's to college.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Northwestern Ave,West Lafayette,United States

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Slackin'

Homework is time consuming and tedious.

I've discovered full metal alchemist. I like it a lot, Major Armstrong makes cry from laughing.

I am almost done milestone 6 for ENGR132. Cool beans.

My team for ENTR200 basically failed our presentation today.

I have no time to doto, though I want to badly.

Hope future me is happy. Bye.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Crunch time!

Three projects, homework, and a couple of tests are looming over my head. Not to mention quizzes and other fun and terrifying things.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Things to think about.

As it crosses 1:20 AM, I am beginning to wonder whether or not that funny feeling I get when I drink comes from actually being drunk. It could be because I am tired. Right now, after I have finished most of my homework for tomorrow, I am wiped. Absolutely wiped. And it is the same feeling I had last week during an excursion to obscure locations of North America. Except that involved my new favorite poison, whiskey.

This may make little sense, but I have been able to put two (barely) coherent thoughts together since midnight: one, despite not drinking, I feel drunk.  Two, I am lonely. Bah, that sounds sad and depressed. AND I STILL DID NOT FINISH MY CGT ASSIGNMENT. ALKFJ:LSAKFJ:ASLKFJASL:KFJ

that was a sad press of the keyboard. I just want to sleep ;(

I begin to crash

It is starting to appear like my first all-nighter of college is upon me.

I have a few hours left to go in this evening and I have a lot of homework to do. I think I may simply attempt to finish most of it tonight, so that I can play all tomorrow. Not a bad thought, except I won't have time to play tomorrow because of engineering. Fuck. it. Also I have entrepreneurship, incidentally a word that I find very difficult to spell.

The sad thing is I am writing this at 12. I am pooped. I will be worse tomorrow, but ah well. Thus is the life. Time to make some tea and hopefully not pass out.  Also I have to get my shirts and do laundry. Tomorrow (today) is going to suck.

CGT Notebooks

Are excruciatingly painful.  Mainly due to an ITaP hangup with my log in. A device was trying to repeatedly log in and to my career account with an outdated password which was locking me out of my career account. Not a good thing to happen.

I reset all my devices though and now it seems to work. I'll take it over not completing this major assignment. GG homework.

Monday, March 24, 2014

My Deck